Well…after a few states have passed minimum wage laws that raise the wage to a still unlivable $15 dollars an hour, we have heard the baloney hand wringing and threats from the ceo’s of many of the low wage companies that depend on not paying their workers what they are worth say that they will have to close down or move to red states where they can still take advantage of their workers. Boo frickin hoo…just read an article comparing the $15 dollar per hour wage that people have been fighting for to the ceo pay on an hourly basis and it is not pretty…all of these jerks that are whining to high heaven make…wait for it…$2,300 to $9,700 PER HOUR…yep these asses that are complaining they can’t afford to pay their workers are getting ceo welfare to the tune of millions of dollars a year…with the ceo of McDonald’s getting a 368% raise for coming up with all day breakfast…yeah…that sure was not an original thought but this idiot took credit for it and is going to siphon off million of dollars more that the company just can’t afford to pay it’s workers. I’ve had enough of coddling these guys and letting them think that they are worth what the get paid…I mean who is worth $35 million a year while his workers are starving? Things just need to change…and the repubs won’t do it…geez….
Tag Archives: ceo pay
Just some musings on Apple…
Well…there was an interesting and spirited argument that I caught on the Guardian’s site yesterday that I wanted to comment on about the possibility that Apple could or should bring it’s manufacturing back to the US since, even paying American wages, they would still be more profitable than most other US companies. I was a little amazed that most of the people that were commenting basically said “to hell with American workers”; that they brought on their joblessness on themselves and drove manufacturing to Asia because they were so greedy…and that Apple can’t really afford to pay more than the slave wages they pay in China….one of the first things that came to mind reading these comments was “when did American workers, our neighbors and friends, become such a hated group?” Then, the second thing that came to mind was “they can’t afford to pay their workers more but they can give one guy, the ceo, 376 million dollars a year?” Until we can grow some empathy in the 1% and cut back on their entitlement mentality that they “earn” every penny of their compensation, the economy here is going to just drift and the middle class will continue to die….geez…
Some radical proposals for the economy…
Well…with the latest numbers that have come out on family income over the past couple of weeks showing that poverty and income inequality is skyrocketing in the US, and the connection between this inequality and the lackluster recovery, I think it is time to do something radical. But first let’s place the responsibility for these changes squarely where they belong, on the repub policies over the past thirty years that have resulted in the top 1% doing well and everyone else going backward. I know, I’ve railed about this before just because what I was seeing an feeling felt wrong, but with numbers like these it is time to stop nibbling at the corners and take a huge bite out of the core problems. First, I would propose an immediate change in ceo pay to 1 dollar per year and structural changes that would prevent any ceo from being compensated more than 50 times the average of the people that work for him or her…this would give them the incentive to raise all boats as the saying goes since rising pay of his workers would also raise the ceo’s pay. Second, I would propose worker representation on every corporate board to break the cycle of cronyism and incestous relationships that pervade corporate America and give all stakeholders a voice in their livelihoods….third, I would immediately raise the pay of all of the workers to the difference of the 1 dollar ceo pay proposed and what the average of the pay has been over the past 5 years….putting billions if not trillions of dollars in the hands of people that will spend it and giving a huge boost to our manufacturing and service industries; creating a truly self-sustaining recovery that will be spread across the economic spectrum….
Okay, I know this is really quite radical and will be branded as socialist, communist, and maybe even Martian…but, what we are currently doing is not working due in large part to the desire of the repubs to ensure that Obama doesn’t get a second term….so we need to do something new…
Did you expect anything different?
Well…I’ve been reading about the big conference on Mackinac Island where the repubs and business leaders, who purport to represent the people of Michigan, are meeting to gloat over ramming through their radical right-wing agenda. Since this conference is supposed give voice to the plans to “reinvent” Michigan, where is the input from the ordinary Michigan citizen? Where is the input from organized labor? Where is the input from our retirees? The quick answer is nowhere….none of those groups were even invited to this “victory lap” where business and their repub lapdogs sip champagne on the porch of the Grand Hotel and make plans to steal even more of the state from you and me. What else can you call it when taxes are raised on everyone but business and then those taxes are given to the ceo’s who then will pad their pay that is already higher than ever in history. How does it feel to write a check to a ceo that makes 20 million dollars a year? What are you going to give up to make sure these guys get another summer home or two new Mercedes?
I guess we only have ourselves to blame for voting for these thieves…or, no, I blame everyone else…I didn’t and will never vote for these thugs….